


Blast from the Past

by AliceInKinkland



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mission Fic, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28971087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceInKinkland/pseuds/AliceInKinkland
Summary: Stranded on a barren planet, Kira, Garak, Bashir, and Dax must work together to survive. The only problem? They've all been transformed into their sixteen-year-old selves.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 69
Collections: Star Trek: Just in Time Fest





	Blast from the Past

**Author's Note:**

> When I was thinking of what to write for the Star Trek: Just In Time Fest, I couldn't get the idea of a de-aging fic out of my head. Which is weird, because to be honest, that's not a trope I'm usually all that into--I often find it too cutesy or ooc. So I started thinking of that as a challenge--how could I write this trope in a way that worked for me?

“Computer, begin recording post-mission log,” says Kira, sitting down in one of the chairs in the cockpit of the Rio Grande. The recording function activates with a beep, and Kira begins. “First officer’s log. Stardate 50893.1. We’re returning from a successful mission investigating—”

“Say something about Garak,” says Bashir from the back of the cockpit, speaking through a mouthful of cream of mushroom soup, hot from the replicator.

“Like what?” says Dax absently, sitting at the flight controls. She’s frowning at something on her screen.

“Like, ‘I didn’t want to have a civilian along but he actually proved quite useful during a delicate diplomatic incident.’”

Kira sighs. “It’s not the fact that he’s a civilian that’s my issue.”

“And what, pray tell, is the issue, Major?” says Garak, entering the cockpit.

But before Kira can respond, Dax says, “There’s something on our sensors.”

“What is it?” says Kira, jumping up.

Dax frowns. “It seems to be some kind of temporal anomaly. Not one the sensors recognize. It’s moving towards us, look.”

Kira leans over to look at Dax’s screen. “Change course. Move away.”

“I’m trying,” says Dax, “but it’s spreading out.”

“Let me try,” says Kira, but as she does so, a purple light envelops the ship.

Four pairs of eyes squint against the growing brightness.

Four bodies lurch as the runabout begins to shake.

Four people clutch their chests as something seems to bubble up within each of them, swirling, morphing, and then—

Four strangers stand in one small spacecraft. Four teenagers, in clothing that looks too large for their still-growing frames. One Human boy, tall and lanky. One Trill girl, short enough that the hems of her pants pool around her feet. One Cardassian boy, solid and stocky, his face carefully expressionless. And one Bajoran girl, wild red hair framing a shrewd face, so thin she looks as though she might blow away with the breeze.

Then, before any of them can make sense of where they are or what has just happened, the runabout begins to drop out of the sky, hurtling towards the grey surface of an unfamiliar planet.

* * *

Emony—no, wait, isn’t her name Jadzia?—is falling.

“Warning. Entering atmosphere in uncontrolled descent. Autopilot offline. Estimated time to surface impact: one minute 20 seconds.”

The voice coming from the speakers is the standard in all Federation computer systems, but Torias—no, _Jadzia_ —has never seen a control panel quite like this one, and already at sixteen he’s been inside many a cockpit. Unfamiliar panels glow all around him—or rather, all around _her_. All around _Jadzia_ , because that’s who she is, and she’s not sure what she was thinking just then, because she’s never been this close to a set of flight controls in her life.

“Well, are you planning on letting us crash, or are you gonna fly this thing?”

Curzon— _Jadzia_ —turns. There are three people behind her, and she’s pretty sure they’re all around the same age as she is. A Human boy, a Cardassian boy, and the girl who must have spoken, whose species Jadzia takes a moment to place. Ridged nose on an otherwise smooth face?

“Estimated time to surface impact: one minute.”

Bajoran, that’s it. From Bajor, which Jadzia is simultaneously sure is a minor but well-respected centre of academic scholarship in the quadrant and also an insignificant Cardassian colony world. Both seem so utterly true and yet so totally incompatible, and Jadzia feels as though her head will explode from this and a thousand other paradoxes.

And still they are hurtling towards the hard, rocky surface.

“To be honest,” grimaces Audrid— _Jadzia_ —“I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

The Bajoran girl moves towards the console, bending down beside her. “Why are you in the pilot’s seat, then?” she says, examining the controls.

Tobin—Jadzia, it’s _Jadzia_ , right?—frowns. “I don’t know.”

“Pah-Wraiths fuck me,” says the girl. Her hand hovers over the console. “OK. I think if we hit this here—”

The runabout jerks, but continues its rapid descent.

“Estimated time to surface impact: 40 seconds.”

“Does _anyone_ know how to fly this thing?” says the Human boy.

“I think—” Jadzia presses a button near the right side of her console. Out slides a manual steering mechanism. She grips it in hands that feel too large and too small all at once. But holding the controls makes something click in Torias’—Jadzia’s?—no, _Torias’_ crowded mind. This is flying, and he knows how to do that—he’s been doing it since he was old enough to play flight simulators, dreaming of it the way he dreams of being Joined.

Beside him—no, beside _her—_ the Bajoran girl presses first one, then another button, biting her lip in concentration. A view of the ground under the runabout appears on her screen. “Looks like the surface is rocky but level,” she says. “It’ll be a rough landing, but I think we can make it.”

Joran’s— _Jadzia’s_ —stomach roils at the change in air pressure as their descent continues. Something warm and heavy shifts in her belly, and she is so completely eight people at once that there is only one thing that could be happening. It’s impossible, but she just _knows_ , with the overwhelming nausea of impossibility—she is Joined.

Tobin’s—no, Jadzia’s—hands fall from the controls and she retches, head spinning.

But there are other hands taking over, the small, calloused hands of the Bajoran girl. She must have seen what Jadzia was doing because she grips the controls and guides the runabout down, down, until they hit the surface of wherever they are with a rattling thump. The runabout shakes. The lights flicker out.

Jadzia throws up all over the console.

* * *

Elim looks around the crashed ship at the three strangers in front of him. This must be some kind of test.

Here he is in a damaged ship, crashed on some unknown planet with three aliens, with no memory of how he got here or who the others are. He must be meant to figure out his location and their identities, and then determine the course of action most likely to protect and enrich the State.

Has he caught the eye of the Obsidian Order?

Is he about to finally make his father proud?

The Bajoran, the one who landed the ship—quite inexpertly, but at least they’re all still alive—crosses her arms in front of her. “Who the fuck are all of you, and why are we here?”

Elim says nothing. He hears his father’s voice in his head: _when the situation is unclear, wait for others to incriminate themselves._

Sure enough, the Human boy speaks up. “You don’t know what’s going on either? I thought it must just be me.”

Elim has never met a Human before, but so far they seem exactly as guileless as he has been led to believe.

“ _I_ don’t know,” says the Bajoran, “but I get the feeling he does.” She nods in Elim’s direction.

She’s perceptive—what does she see in him that makes her suspect him? Or maybe she just automatically distrusts any Cardassian she encounters? Elim considers his options. Is it better to insinuate that he has answers, or act as though he knows no more than any of the others? Is there a cover story he could tell that would give him some power over them?

“I’m actually rather lost myself,” he says, when the silence has stretched out long enough to be conspicuous.

“Right then,” says the Human boy. “What if we shared a bit about ourselves, see if that jogs our memories?”

The Bajoran tenses slightly, her eyes momentarily widening. She’s hiding something, Elim is sure. Maybe that’s why she’s suspicious of him—she’s projecting.

She recovers quickly. “I’m Luma Rahl,” she says, and though she sounds nonchalant, her slight hesitation makes Elim almost positive that’s nowhere close to her actual name. “What else do you want to know?”

The Human boy shrugs. “Age? Favourite book, or sport, or subject in school, or something?”

The Bajoran frowns. “Sixteen. And...I like springball?”

“Perfect!” says the Human boy. “Hi, Luma,” he continues, probably assuming that to be her given name. “My name is Julian Bashir, and I’m also sixteen years old, and I live on Earth. My favourite sport is tennis and my best subject in school is probably biology. I’m actually in a university-level pre-med class right now—or, I was. Is anyone else having trouble remembering what you did right before this?”

The Trill girl nods. There is vomit on her ill-fitting jumpsuit, which almost resembles a Starfleet uniform, but not a kind Elim has ever seen. “That about sums it up.” Seeing three pairs of eyes turn towards her, she says, “And my name is Jadzia. I think. And I’m also sixteen. And we like—I mean, I—fuck.” She wraps her hands around her stomach. “Um. Give me a minute?”

“Are we all sixteen?” says Julian.

Elim sees no reason to lie about this in particular. “It appears so.”

“And your name?” says the Bajoran, which is terribly ironic coming from someone who is clearly keeping her cards just as close to her chest as he is.

“Alardig Ra'orn,” he says smoothly, picking the first alias that comes to mind.

“This is all very sweet,” says the Bajoran, “but did it help anyone remember anything about why we’re all here?”

Three heads shake in unison.

She nods decisively. “In that case, we should just figure out where we are and how to get out of here.” Her gaze lands on Elim once more, eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Elim knows that, Bajoran though she may be, she’s not someone he should underestimate.

All his instincts are telling him that she’s the key, the reason he’s here, the point of this test.

He meets her gaze, and smiles.

* * *

Nerys is getting sick of all this talking.

Yes, there’s something deeply strange going on here—their fractured memories, their unfamiliar clothing, the mere fact of all of them together on the ship in the first place. There’s danger here, risk, impending disaster. Nerys isn’t sure she can trust any of the others at all. But they won’t get anywhere if they just stay on this ship playing little getting-to-know-you games.

Plus, if there’s anything Nerys has learned in her life so far, it’s that strange and inexplicable things happen all the time.

The important thing is just to do your best to survive them.

“Can we leave the ship?” says Nerys. “What planet are we on? Can we breathe the atmosphere?”

“Um, computer? Where are we?” says Julian.

Nothing happens.

“The computer probably got knocked out by the crash,” says Nerys, not bothering to hide the impatience in her voice. “Does anyone have a tricorder?”

Jadzia looks around for a moment, then seems to notice one attached to her belt. She hands it to Nerys. It looks almost brand new, small and sleek, not anything like the second-hand black market Federation tech she’s used to. Nerys holds it carefully.

“I used one of these in class, last—I mean, recently, I think?” says Jadzia. “If you want to study the composition of the air, you go to this menu here.” She reaches over and fiddles with the settings. “Looks like the oxygen level is just under 0.2 standard atmosphere, which is alright. It’s probably not an M class planet, but we won’t die.”

“Might get a bit lightheaded if we exert ourselves,” says Julian. “But that should be it.”

“Great,” says Nerys.

“The first thing we should do is call for help, right?” says Julian.

Jadzia nods, and Nerys almost wants to laugh. These Federation kids aren’t quite as useless as she first expected—they clearly know plenty of things she doesn’t, probably related to how they talk about school as though it’s a natural part of their everyday lives. But at the end of the day, they’re still from the Federation. When they call for help, they’re used to someone listening.

“There’s probably an emergency beacon around here somewhere,” says Jadzia. She gets up and walks towards the back of the ship. Julian follows her, leaving Nerys alone with the only other occupant of the ship, who is eyeing her in a way that makes her skin crawl.

Nerys meets the cardie boy’s gaze. “You’ve been quiet.”

He inclines his head, smiling. “You three seem to be doing quite well without my input.”

Nerys is about to say something ill-advised about Cardassians letting others do their dirty work, when Julian and Jadzia return from the back carrying a large white box.

“There’s a whole emergency survival kit,” says Jadzia, setting the box down on the unresponsive console.

Julian opens the box and shows them the contents. “Distress beacon, four heat-reflecting blankets, emergency rations, water pouches, a flashlight, and a basic ship repair kit. And there’s another box like this with a first aid kit somewhere else in the back.”

“So you want to launch the beacon,” says the Cardassian. It sounds simultaneously like a question and a statement.

As far as Nerys reckons, one of two things could happen if someone intercepts the beacon and comes to their rescue. One, she’ll be turned over to Cardassia. Two, she’ll be turned over to the Federation, or maybe some other Alpha Quadrant power. Both would involve a long limbo of questioning, probably in some windowless building or space station; bright lights against tired eyelids; forms signed in triplicate on shiny PADDs. The only real difference, apart from how many bruises she’d acquire and whether she'd get to leave with all her teeth still in her mouth, would be where she’d end up: a Cardassian labour camp, or some kind of resettlement centre full of tired Bajoran refugees displaced from their homeworld. Neither would end with her back home in Dakhur, helping her father with his garden, slipping out into the mountains to rendez-vous with the Shakaar.

Basically, she’s fucked either way.

“Let’s launch the beacon, but I think we should try to repair the ship, too,” says Jadzia.

Now that changes things. If the ship is repaired, and the beacon is launched...Nerys is starting to formulate a plan. It’s not a very nice plan. But it might be her only chance to get home, to keep fighting. To not let her people down.

“We should do both,” says Nerys decisively. “Launch the beacon, repair the ship. Probably also explore the area, check for any dangers.”

“I think I can help with the repairs,” says Jadzia. “I’m—I mean, one of my past hosts knows some engineering. And I’ve flown this kind of thing before. Sort of.”

“I’ll stay as well,” says Julian. “I’m actually a very quick study when it comes to things like this.”

Nerys looks at the Cardassian. “Guess that leaves us to launch that beacon.”

He nods.

Well, it’s probably better to keep an eye on him anyway. She’ll just have to watch her back. She grabs the beacon and the tricorder, and the two of them head towards the door, ready to explore the planet beyond.

* * *

Julian watches as Luma and Alardig walk out the runabout door and onto the unfamiliar rock they’ve landed on.

“So,” he says, turning back to Jadzia, “You have some idea of how to repair this thing, I take it? I’ve been in a few computer science classes, but it’s always been a bit more theoretical than this.”

“I think I do,” says Jadzia. She’s wiping the console where she threw up, grimacing slightly as she does so. “Somewhere. It’s just—I’ve got eight people in my head, and it’s a lot.”

Julian frowns. “Isn’t that normal? For a Trill?”

“We don’t usually get Joined so young, no.”

“Is that why you threw up?” says Julian.

(Was that a weird question to ask?)

“Yeah, I think so,” says Jadzia. “It was really disorienting, at first. I woke up, and there were all these different memories in my mind.”

Julian just assumed it was motion sickness. Why did he assume? What kind of doctor will he ever be if he doesn’t reflexively stop to wonder why someone might have vomited? He'll fail his patients. He’ll be laughed out of med school. His parents will be devastated. He’ll—but Jadzia is still talking.

“And there’s training and stuff. I’m in the middle of the training right now—we all are. All eight of us. Except, now it seems like we’re all Joined.”

Maybe if Julian asks more questions now, he won’t make stupid mistakes like that again. “What do you mean, you’re all in the training?”

“It feels like...all of us think we’re sixteen. Sixteen is the oldest any of us have been. But none of us remember dying. It’s weird. There’s something really wrong here.”

Julian swallows, and voices his larger fear. “Do you think this is some kind of punishment?”

“For what?”

“Nothing,” says Julian quickly, regretting his words already. Why does he always have to talk so much? He’s so weird. And he’s being paranoid. No one’s found him out. He isn’t being dumped here, on some barren rock, because the Federation has decided he’s a danger to the rest of the galaxy. He isn’t Khan Noonien Singh.

“I don’t think it’s a punishment—but I honestly don’t know what it is. It’s weird, right? I just feel like I’m missing something.”

“Me too.”

“Is this a simulation?”

“Computer, freeze program,” tries Julian. Nothing happens. “Sorry, that was dumb.”

Jadzia shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

“I guess we should try to fix this up.”

“They _are_ sending out the beacon, though, right?”

“Sure,” says Jadzia, “but what if no one picks up on it? And anyway, I don’t know about you, but I’d kind of like something to do right now.”

Julian considers the thoughts swirling around in his head, his usual anxieties—the illegality of his body and mind, his grand potential, his difficulty fitting in—mixing with the fear of being trapped on some lifeless planet with three strangers and no chance of escape. “I know just what you mean,” he says, and they get to work.

* * *

Nerys has got to get home.

It’s all she can think about as they make their way along the rocky ground. The air does indeed feel a bit thin here—nothing she can’t breathe, but it reminds her of being up high in the mountains, high enough that the trees thin out and she can look down at all of Dakhur spread out before her eyes.

She misses Bajor so much it hurts.

The Cardassian walks silently beside her. By unspoken agreement, they are heading towards a rocky outcropping, one of the few slight hills on this otherwise flat plane. A good place to launch the beacon. There is only a faint light, like twilight on an overcast night. She can feel his eyes on her, but every time she turns her head, he is looking elsewhere, out across the landscape.

Nerys thumbs the phaser attached to her belt. It looks like more Federation tech, which is yet another strange piece in this puzzle, but the important thing is, there’s a light when she flicks it on.

It would be so much easier if it were just her and the cardie boy. She has no compunctions about killing him—any Cardassian is a legitimate target. But the others? No. She’s had to do a lot of awful things in her life, but she doesn’t think she could live with herself if she took the lives of those two coddled Federation kids.

She can’t quite believe they’re the same age as she is. Do Humans and Trill just mature more slowly than Bajorans? Or are they just what she would be like in a different life, a life where she’d spent her youth going to school and playing sports and whatever else they do on Federation planets?

The cardie boy’s foot slips on a rock, and he stumbles before righting himself. The sudden movement sends Nerys’ hand to her phaser, and though she returns it quickly to her side, she knows he noticed and clocked the phaser. Fuck.

But they keep walking.

So no, she can’t kill Jadzia and Julian. But could she leave them here? With food and water and warm reflective blankets, and a distress beacon traversing the stars in service of their rescue? Surely people will be looking for them soon, and the Federation has plenty of resources to trek out to whatever planet they’re on to retrieve them.

And what else can she do? There’s no way for Nerys to make it home alive, unless she takes the ship.

And Prophets, she wants that ship.

She can’t stop thinking about how incredible it would be for the Shakaar to have something like it. It flies like a dream, intuitive enough that she was able to execute a passable landing with no practice, no training, no knowledge even of what half the buttons meant. It’s armed in some capacity; she knows she saw buttons for phaser banks on the controls, and a weapons locker at the back. And most of all, it has a replicator.

At the very least, a replicator means food. Food and fresh water and clothing, for her whole cell and maybe even others as well. Warm winter boots and vegetables, soap and medicines.

And replicators can also be hacked and reprogrammed to make even more weapons. Bombs and disruptors, everything they need for their raids. With the kind of firepower they could get out of a modified Federation replicator, they could really hit the spoonheads where it hurts.

Of course, the whole thing will run out of power eventually. And it would be hard to hide it in the mountains. But they could do so much good with it, feed children and blow up transport ships and treat sepsis.

She’s taking it. No matter how guilty it makes her feel, she’ll just have to get over it. It’s not like she hasn’t done worse. And Julian and Jadzia will be fine. Probably.

* * *

Jadzia slowly pulls herself out from under the console. “I think that should do it,” she says. She is Tobin, seeing systems in every machine, but she is also still herself.

She hates to admit it, but it’s a little overwhelming, being Joined. All her various past hosts agree—it’s loud, and messy, and exciting in a way that veers easily into being Too Much. She feels as though she’s losing herself a little bit, being subsumed in all these different personalities. Which is an awful thought. All she’s wanted her whole life is to be Joined. Does this mean she can’t handle it?

Tobin understands the anxiety, but he also knows how to channel it into repairing the ship, and Jadzia is beginning to understand how to channel Tobin. The ship really wasn’t damaged all that badly, thank goodness—the crash took out the main computer, but now that she’s rerouted some core functions through the auxiliary power, things should come back online.

“Is it ready to test?” says Julian. He wasn’t lying when he said he was a quick learner. He got life support back online all on his own after he watched her for a while, and he’s checked for weak points in the outer hull of the ship, found her tools she needs, kept her company. Talked her ear off, which has been...mostly nice.

He’s cute, which is largely Emony talking—she has a thing for his delicate hands. Lela and Torias are more interested in the Bajoran girl, the fire in her eyes, that compact frame. Curzon and Audrid are more than a little curious about the Cardassian boy, with his mysterious smile.

It’s all very confusing.

“Yeah, let’s do this,” says Jadzia. “Computer, are you there?”

“Affirmative,” says the computer, and Jadzia wants to whoop for joy. So do all the other consciousnesses rattling around within her, and there’s something nice about how they amplify each other in a celebration of success.

“Great. Initiate standard post-repair diagnostic.”

“Standard post-repair diagnostic commencing. Estimated time to completion is five minutes 32 seconds.”

“Can we ask it questions while we wait?” says Julian.

“Don’t see why not.”

Julian nods. “Right. Computer, where are we?”

“You are on Telius IV, the fourth planet of the Telius system.”

“That’s far from Earth,” says Julian. “Really far.”

“From Trill, too,” says Jadzia. “Computer, where did we start this voyage? I mean, where did this runabout launch from?”

“This runabout launched from Deep Space 9 seven hours 22 minutes ago.”

“I—what?” says Julian. “What’s that?”

“Question is unclear.”

“What is Deep Space 9?” says Jadzia. All of her hosts are drawing a blank—she knows about other Deep Space stations, but she’s pretty sure they stop at 6? 8?

“Deep Space 9 is a joint Federation-Bajoran space station, located in the Denorios belt within the B'hava'el star system, near the only known stable wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant.”

Jadzia and Julian share a look of utter confusion.

Finally, Julian says, “How did I, Julian Bashir, end up on a Bajoran space station?”

“You, Dr. Julian Bashir, are the Chief Medical Officer of Deep Space Nine.”

Every time they poke at any part of this situation, the whole thing makes even less sense than it did before. Something is deeply off here. Are they in a parallel universe? A universe where sixteen-year-olds get Joined to other sixteen-year-olds before any of them have finished their training? But that wouldn’t explain the selective memory loss—the way she can remember the trajectory of her whole life just fine, but not what day of the week it is.

“Computer, what day is it today?” says Jadzia.

“It is stardate 50893.1.”

Jadzia and Julian look at each other once more. “It’s _what_?”

* * *

Elim considers the Bajoran walking alongside him.

She’s up to something, he’s sure of it. She’s suspicious of him, but it’s more than that—she looks like she’s concentrating on something. And she’s hiding things from him and the others—her real name, the fact that she’s armed, and undoubtedly more.

“So,” he says, breaking the silence that has settled over them since they left the ship, “It appears we’re both a long way from home.”

She glares. “Let’s get one thing straight—we’re not friends.”

Elim makes his tone one of deliberate calm. “Some people would be quite upset to hear that kind of thing.”

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know what you think you know about me or about Bajorans or whatever, but I’m not afraid of you.”

Spoken like someone who has learned to hide her fear very well indeed.

“Noted,” says Elim. “In that case, why don’t you just set off the beacon, now that we’re at what appears to be the highest elevation available?”

“Fine,” says the Bajoran. She holds it up, studying the instructions. After a moment, she grimaces. “I can’t read this,” she says, teeth gritted, as though it takes great effort to admit it.

Elim takes the beacon from her hands. The text is in Federation Standard. His knowledge of the language is basic, but clearly greater than his companion’s. Here is a chance to demonstrate some power he has over her, keep her off balance.

He reads the alien letters slowly, trying to keep the effort off his face. “It’s simple enough,” he says, once he is reasonably sure he’s made sense of the text.

She glares at him.

Elim makes a big show of smiling at her as he walks backwards up the slight incline. The truth is, he doesn’t want to turn his back on her. He isn’t sure if his father would think he was being appropriately cautious or needlessly paranoid. But the fact that she has a phaser hanging from her belt has not escaped his notice.

But then, neither has the fact that he’s got a small disruptor strapped to his arm, just the way he taught himself to carry it.

Elim sets the beacon down on the rocky ground. He’s lightheaded from even this short climb. He can’t wait to be back on Cardassia Prime, his home, where he belongs.

He’s never seen an emergency beacon quite like this one, but he understands the basics. You send it up out of orbit. It travels as far as it can through the vast expanse of space, transmitting the coordinates of its launch as it goes. Eventually, someone should pick up its signal and come to everyone’s rescue. But that someone could be anyone at all.

It’s really very inconvenient.

And it can’t be a good prospect for the Bajoran, either, can it? Surely she knows that if she were picked up by Cardassia, she would be in for a rough time. Maybe she’s hoping she’ll be picked up by the Federation, tell them some trumped-up sob story about life under Cardassian rule, and be allowed to file a refugee claim.

Maybe she just can’t think of any other way out.

But Elim can.

He turns the beacon on. He clicks the smooth buttons on its side until it’s on the setting he desires. He double checks the alien writing, making sure he’s set it correctly. He steps back. He watches it shoot up into the air, higher and higher until it is out of sight.

When he turns his attention back to the Bajoran, he does not like the expression on her face at all. It reminds him of a snake sizing up its prey, trying to decide if it will be able to swallow him whole. His self-preservation instinct tells him to take her out right now.

But he has to tread more carefully than that. She’s part of his test, and he still doesn’t know exactly why. He needs to figure it out. And if she’s important in any way, if she knows anything at all—if she is, as he is beginning to suspect, connected to the Bajoran so-called resistance—he’ll be expected to bring her in alive.

Elim pushes down the pang of guilt, that soft slide of weakness in his belly. This is what it means to be a good citizen. A good spy. A good son.

She realizes he’s looking at her. Her fingers twitch. Is she reaching for her phaser? While she can tell he’s watching? It’s possible—Bajorans are known to take wild risks. They bomb their own people! He’s not sure what she’s capable of. Should he stun her?

Then, her combadge crackles to life. “You two better come back here,” says Jadzia. “We’ve got some important news.”

* * *

When they return to the ship, Nerys can’t quite meet the eyes of the two Federation kids. Some stupid, sentimental part of her is almost hoping they’ll tell her the ship is beyond repair, that they’re all stranded here until they can get help, just so she won’t have to betray them. Even if that means she might never see her home again.

“We’ve got good news, and weird news,” says Jadzia. She looks less disoriented than she did when Nerys last saw her.

“The good news is, we think we’ve repaired most of the ship,” says Julian. “All the essential systems.”

“Will it fly?” says Nerys.

“It should,” says Jadzia. “But let’s hope we don’t have to test that. Did you two send up the beacon?”

“Yes,” says Nerys, and then she steels herself. It’s only going to get harder the longer they sit around talking.

Nerys pulls the phaser from her belt and raises it, pointing it at Julian, then at Jadzia. It’s set to stun. Holding the weapon up makes the doubt recede in her mind, replaced with a familiar surge of adrenaline. Her finger is steady on the trigger. “Now I’m going to have to ask you to get out of the runabout. Take two of the emergency packs, they’ll keep you going for days, and the beacon should reach someone soon. You’ll be OK. But I’m taking this ship.”

“Not so fast.” Nerys turns to see the cardie boy pointing a disruptor at her. “The only person taking that ship is me.”

Nerys laughs despite her fear. It comes out cold and bitter. “You don’t need a ship. Just wait around for someone to find that beacon and I’m sure you’ll get a nice warm welcome back home.”

“That might be the case, were the beacon actually transmitting.” He looks entirely too pleased with himself.

“You sabotaged it?” says Nerys. Her mind is racing. Now if she leaves Julian and Jadzia here, she’ll probably be signing their death warrants. She never wanted that. But if she backs down now that she’s revealed her plan—

“I did indeed,” he says, his disrupter still aimed squarely at her chest. “No sense in bringing the Federation to our doorstep. I’d hoped to be more subtle about all of this, but you’ve forced my hand.”

“So you’re planning to go back to Cardassia?” says Nerys. “And leave us here?”

“Oh no,” he says. “You’re all coming with me. Frankly, I’m not sure what’s planned for those two. But I get the sense you’ll have lots to tell us.”

So he wants her alive. So that disruptor of his is probably only set to stun.

Nerys flips the switch on her phaser from _stun_ to _kill_. She spins in one fluid motion and shoots him in the chest.

When the light of the phaser fire clears from her vision, she sees him on the ground, and for a moment she thinks she’s done it, piled another body onto her conscience. But then he stirs, struggling back to his feet, hand still gripping his disruptor. He’s bleeding from his shoulder.

Three years of combat, of target practice, and she’s still not as good a shot as she needs to be.

“Can everyone just calm down for a minute?” says Jadzia. “We haven’t even told you the weird news.”

Nerys holds her phaser steady, poised to fire once more. “OK. Let’s hear it.”

“The weird news,” says Julian, “is that we’re not actually teenagers.”

* * *

Jadzia (who is also Curzon and Emony and all the rest, but who is beginning to understand how to be Jadzia most of all) surveys the scene in front of her. “Alardig” is standing tall despite the shoulder injury, his expression one of a nonchalance she’s got to assume is fake. “Rahl” is breathing hard, her whole body one taut bowstring of tension.

Both their weapons are drawn.

Jadzia takes a deep breath, and it feels as though all the past selves inside of her are breathing with her, giving her strength. Now that she’s pretty sure she knows what’s going on, it’s still overwhelming, but it’s interesting, too. It’s probably something no other Joined Trill has ever quite experienced—eight young consciousness living inside her, and no memory of any of them ending.

But right now, there are more pressing concerns than a scientific marvel.

Julian says, “So first of all, both of you gave us fake names.”

Jadzia tenses, but no one fires. Well. It’s not how she would have started this explanation, but apparently that’s one way to do it.

“Your real names are Kira Nerys and Elim Garak,” Julian continues, and by the widening of Nerys’ eyes and the narrowing of Elim’s, Jadzia thinks she and Julian have successfully thrown both of them off-balance. “We found that out from the computer. But that’s not all we found out.”

There’s a time and place for some dramatic storytelling, but when there are multiple weapons in play, Jadzia thinks it’s probably better to just cut to the point. So she attempts to summarize. “It’s really 2373. We were adults, on this runabout together, on a mission. And then the runabout hit a temporal distortion and turned us back into who we were as teenagers.”

“2373?” says Nerys, frowning.

“1597, in the Cardassian calendar,” supplies Elim. “9976 by modern Bajoran reckoning, I believe.”

“So you’re saying we’re in the future?” says Nerys.

“Not quite, but that's what I thought at first too,” says Julian.

“What Julian means to say,” says Jadzia, “is that it feels that way to us, because we’ve been turned into our sixteen-year-old selves. We have all our memories and personality traits up until that general period, but because we weren’t actually taken from a specific moment, we can’t remember exactly where we were right before now. Like, what did you do yesterday? You can’t remember, right?”

Nerys gives a thoughtful shake of her head. “I guess not. But that doesn’t prove—”

“Think about it. The first thing we can all clearly remember is being in that runabout. Obviously, there was a reason for all of us to be there, but we don’t remember it.”

“And look at what we’re wearing,” Julian chimes in. “Jadzia and I are in Starfleet uniforms, but not ones we recognize. Nerys, you’re in some kind of uniform as well. And all our clothes are too big for us, right? Because they’re built for our adult bodies!”

Nerys narrows her eyes. “Say all this is true. That doesn’t change the fact that he,” here she gestures at Elim, “wants to take all of us back to Cardassia to interrogate.”

“But that’s just the thing,” says Julian excitedly, “it changes everything! By 2373, Cardassia isn’t occupying Bajor anymore.”

“The Occupation is over?” says Nerys. There is something complicated happening on her face, something Jadzia might call hope if it didn’t look so furious.

“Yes!” says Julian. “And now things must be fine between your two worlds, because we were clearly all working together—”

“There’s no fucking way I’m working with him,” says Nerys, spitting each word out with re-ignited fury. “I’m not a collaborator.”

“I also find our cooperation...difficult to believe,” says Elim. His voice sounds ever-so-slightly strained, and Jadzia isn’t sure, but she thinks his skin seems even more pallid than before. His shoulder is bleeding sluggishly.

They need to move this conversation along before one of them starts shooting again. Jadzia has never, in all her many half-lived lives, been around this many weapons. It’s disturbing how comfortable Elim and Nerys both seem around them. “Look,” she says, “There’s an easy way for us to find out.”

“Do tell,” says Elim.

“We just have to fly back through the temporal anomaly!” says Julian.

“In the ship you are only fairly confident is operational,” says Elim.

“Well what’s the alternative?” says Julian. “You sabotaged the beacon, no one’s coming for us.”

“I’ll do it,” says Nerys. “I’ll fly that thing through the temporal anomaly, test it out.”

Elim laughs. “And then when it doesn’t work, you’ll fly away and leave us here. No, thank you.”

“We’ll all have to go,” says Jadzia, realizing the truth as she says it. Nerys and Elim won’t trust any of this, otherwise.

But neither of them move.

Curzon has a terrible, wonderful idea, and before Jadzia can resist, her hands are in motion: pulling her own phaser from her belt, and pointing it at Nerys. “Everyone, get in the ship. We’re flying this thing through the temporal anomaly. If we go through and we don’t turn back into adults, then you two can argue over who gets to kill each other. But first, we’re doing this my way.”

Nerys considers her. “You won’t really shoot me.”

Jadzia raises an eyebrow. Her heart is pounding in her chest, but all her past hosts hold her hand steady, and in this moment, she is utterly, wonderfully, herself. “You wanna bet?”

And in the silence, Elim lets out a small, pained noise, and collapses to the ground.

* * *

Julian rushes to where Elim has fallen and crouches down beside him. He’s not going to screw this up, not like he did when he overlooked Jadzia’s vomiting. He’s going to be cool and confident like the future doctor he is.

He’s never learned much about Cardassian bodies—all the anatomy lessons he’s had so far have been about Federation species—but surely he can figure some things out on his own. Is Elim breathing? He watches for a moment, and sure enough, Elim’s chest is rising and falling.

He snaps his fingers beside Elim’s ears, runs his knuckles along his sternum (Cardassian skin feels so _interesting!_ ). No response.

“He’s breathing, but unconscious,” says Julian.

“Can you move him?” says Jadzia.

Julian tries to think. It’s stressful, trying to save someone’s life under pressure like this, but it’s actually less stressful than Julian might have expected. It’s almost exciting? Almost. Like solving a complicated math problem. Is that a bad thing to think?

“It’s not ideal,” says Julian, “but I think under the circumstances it’s the best choice.” He’s drawing on everything he learned in his first aid course, and in the pre-med enrichment seminar he took last summer, and in what he’s read on his own. “I saw him fall, so I know he didn’t break his neck. He’s probably in shock from blood loss. If we can get him into the ship and fly back through the anomaly—”

“You’ll be a doctor again,” says Jadzia. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. But can you _physically_ move him? On your own? I need to keep an eye on her.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” says Nerys. “You heard what he said about what he wants to do. Even if you’re right about all this time stuff, what do you think he’s like as an adult? Who’s to say he wasn’t plotting to capture and torture us back before we hit the anomaly?”

(Is Elim really a _spy_? Julian shivers. That’s a little scary—but also incredibly cool).

Jadzia shrugs. “Guess it’s good you’ll be there as well, to protect us.”

Julian puts his hands under Elim’s armpits and begins dragging him toward the runabout as gently as he can. Elim is heavier than Julian expected, and he suspects he might have a problem carrying him if it weren’t for his augments. But neither Jadzia nor Nerys seem to find anything unusual about his ability to hold the body up. For good measure, Julian makes sure to huff and puff as he goes.

Jadzia and Nerys follow him inside, and the runabout door closes with a hiss.

Julian sets Elim down in one of the chairs, reclining it so that Elim is as horizontal as possible. He breathes deeply, trying to remember what comes next. He should find something to stop the wound. Then he should check more of his vitals with a medical tricorder. If the ride is bumpy getting out of the atmosphere, he should keep him from moving around too much.

He can do this, he realizes with a burst of pride. He really can.

* * *

Elim regains consciousness slowly, like the warmup to a symphony. His eyes flutter open, just slightly, and he almost jumps up, but he stops himself just in time.

Better to observe for as long as he can before anyone realizes he’s awake.

There is a hand against the side of his head, holding him steady, and something cold and hard is bumping lightly against his injured shoulder. Elim bites back a groan of pain, forcing himself to stay still and pliant in whoever’s hands these are.

“At the very least we should tie him up,” says a girl’s voice. The Bajoran. Kira Nerys.

“And I’m telling you, he’s injured,” says another voice. Julian. He must be the one holding Elim’s head.

“You sure you can fly this thing?” says Nerys. “Because I can try—”

“No offense,” says Jadzia, “but there is no way I’m letting you anywhere near these controls right now. And yeah, one of my past hosts was a pilot. We’re figuring it out. It’s a lot easier now that I understand what’s really going on here.”

 _What’s really going on_. Could it be true? Elim doesn’t think so. But just in case—what should his strategy be if he suddenly becomes an adult? Who could he be to these people? Surely he isn’t really working with a Bajoran and two Starfleet officers—surely he isn’t a traitor to the Union. But then how do they know his real name?

It’s not real. This whole situation is a test from the Obsidian Order. A test he can still figure out how to pass, make his father proud, if he just keeps his head.

“You know,” says Nerys, “I hope you’re right. Really.”

“About the temporal anomaly?” says Jadzia. “About us being adults?”

“Yeah. And about Bajor. All my life…” She trails off. Elim stays perfectly still. This could be the moment she starts to confess it all, her life as a terrorist, the names of all the members of her cell, all the other pieces of information he’s no doubt supposed to extract from her like teeth. But all she says is, “It sounds very nice. Just a bit too nice, you know?”

“Everyone find a seat,” says Jadzia. “I think this is gonna be a little bumpy, although I promise to do my best.”

“I’m not letting him out of my sight,” says Nerys.

“In that case, neither am I,” says Julian.

“Well, at least hold on to something,” says Jadzia, “and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

And with that, the runabout hurtles upwards, much faster than it probably should. The air in the cabin depressurizes, then stabilizes too late, automatic safeties kicking in. Elim’s ears pop. He feels himself beginning to float upwards, and then the artificial gravity kicks in and slams him back into his chair.

“Sorry about that,” says Jadzia. “When Torias was flying, all of this looked a bit different.”

“How long until the temporal anomaly?” says Nerys. She’s starting to truly believe it, Elim thinks, believe this whole ridiculous story about being in the future, a future in which she’s already won.

Good. Hope makes people careless.

“We’re approaching it right now,” says Jadzia.

“Should we do anything?” says Julian.

“I don’t think so,” says Jadzia. “Just keep holding on.”

Purple light begins to permeate the runabout, bright enough that Elim can see it even from behind his closed eyelids. He feels a kind of tugging in strange parts of himself—his calves and his stomach and his neck. The light grows brighter still, so bright it hurts—and then, with a flash, everything changes.

* * *

Kira, Garak, Dax, and Bashir, adults once more, stare at each other for a long moment.

“Well,” says Dax, breaking the silence, “I guess we’ve just learned that we were a bunch of _really_ intense teenagers.”

“How are you feeling, Garak?” says Bashir. “I’m going to need to check your vitals again now that I remember my medical degree.”

Garak brushes away Bashir’s hand. “I assure you, I’m fine.”

“I need to apologize to you all,” says Kira, grimacing. She sets her shoulders and nods at Garak. “But especially to you. I am—so sorry.”

“Think nothing of it,” says Garak. “Perfectly understandable, under the circumstances.”

“No harm done,” says Dax, touching Kira’s arm. “You weren’t yourself. None of us were.”

“Are you two OK?” says Bashir, looking to Dax and Kira. “I’d like to give you each a full physical when we get back to DS9, just in case.”

“I’m fine,” says Dax. “But wow. I’d forgotten how overwhelming it was, when I was first Joined. All those different people in my head. When I was sixteen, I thought I was so ready for it, but I barely knew who Jadzia was. The symbiont would have drowned me. I guess I really did need to wait, to come into myself a bit first.”

“You know, I’m so glad I’m not a teenager anymore,” says Bashir. “I used to feel so awkward all the time.”

Dax snorts. “Used to?” But then she smiles and nods. “Yeah. Everything just feels so intense when you’re that age.”

“Perhaps for certain people, things truly are that intense,” says Garak.

Dax shoots a worried look at Kira. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” says Kira. “Honestly, there was something nice about being that age again. I was so sure of myself then. I knew what I was about, and I knew who was with me and who wasn’t.”

“You had a purpose,” says Garak. “Something you’d dedicated your life to fulfilling.”

Bashir raises his eyebrows. “Is that coming from personal experience?”

Garak gives Bashir a perfectly blank look. “My dear doctor, I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know, it’s almost stranger being thirty,” says Kira. “There were times I wouldn't have believed you if you told me I’d live this long.”

“I’m glad you did,” says Dax.

Kira laughs ruefully. “Even though I almost killed you all back there?”

“Even so,” says Bashir.

“Well, I definitely don’t miss how intense crushes feel when you’re sixteen,” says Dax. “Having eight horny teenagers in my head is an experience I really don’t need to repeat.”

Bashir raises an eyebrow. “So did some of your past hosts have crushes on some of us?”

But Dax just smiles, setting a course for home. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'd highly encourage you to check out the other works in the Just In Time Fest collection--there are some real gems!
> 
> Also, if you'll permit some shameless self-promotion, I recently wrote a fic that fits the premise of this fest perfectly--but I started posting before I found out about it. So if you'd like to read another, much darker, fic by me using a different time-related trope, feel free to check out ["To Suffer Woes Which Hope Thinks Infinite,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27672151) in which Kira is caught in a time loop while travelling back in time to learn about her mother and Dukat.


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